Former U.S. Naval Petty Officer Henry Mathis Recalls 1950s On The Coral Sea

Recalls Passing On A Chance To Dine With Admiral J.H. Cassady

by Michael Stanley Staff Writer

Pier Seven at Norfolk, Virginia was the first time former U.S. Navy Petty Officer Third Class Henry Mathis boarded the U.S.S. Coral Sea in the 1950s. (Courtesy Photo) Before enlisting in the U.S. Navy and becoming a Third Class Petty Officer for his time served during the Korean War, Spencer's Henry Mathis worked in a cabinet factory in Indianapolis and served as a member of the Indiana National Guard Post in Spencer.

"The Korean War was starting to break out and I thought to myself, 'I've seen enough of that infantry, and I don't want any of that through the guard down there, so I thought I'd go down to 38th Street and enlist there," Mathis explained. "They said I couldn't until I got a discharge from the National Guard. So I went into Jack Money's office and told him I wanted a discharge so I could join the Naval Reserves. At that time, he was trying to build up the battalion down here, so he wouldn't give me one."

Undeterred, Mathis said he traveled back to Indianapolis and told the men in charge of Naval Reserve recruitment that the local guard wouldn't release him.

Korean War era U.S. Navy Petty Officer Third Class Henry Mathis of Spencer examines a map found inside a diary he was given depicting his journey throughout the Mediterranean Sea onboard the U.S.S. Coral Sea in the early 1950s. (Staff Photo by Michael Stanley) "I had to write a letter to the adjunct general," Mathis said. "So I was down at the lockers getting my uniform on, and somebody said that the captain wanted to see me right away. So I went and knocked on his door and told him who I was. He was madder than an old wet hen; he said, 'Mathis, I'm not very happy with you. You went over my head, and I don't like that.' I said,

Jack, I went through the chain of command, and you turned it down. I didn't have any other choice.' So he gave me my discharge and on the back of it, he wrote, 'Not recommended for any further enlistment in the National Guard.' I went back up and enlisted with the Navy, and it wasn't a month before that unit got activated."

Mathis said that the majority of his duties were spent in the generator room on the aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Coral Sea.

This map found inside a diary Petty Officer Third Class Henry Mathis was given depicts his journey throughout the Mediterranean Sea onboard the U.S.S. Coral Sea in the early 1950s. (Staff Photo by Michael Stanley) "I was in the generator room, which generated power and lights to the ship," Mathis explained. "Aircraft carriers have four units: a pump room, a generated room, an engine room and a control room, then you have a shaft that runs the ship. You could torpedo an aircraft carrier in a vital spot, but all that does is lock that part down, and it continues to run. You're not going to put it out of commission. There are seven different vital points to hit to sink it, but that was unusual. When the Korean War broke out, we went to Yugoslavia, and Yugoslavia is just a port like Norfolk, Virginia is a port. The air group would fly supplies into Korea, Vietnam and Thailand. We weren't in any battles or anything, or on foreign soil, but it was our job to get supplies to people who were there."

Mathis recalled the cat-andmouse game played during war time off of the coast of foreign soil.

"Their fighter planes would chase our planes out, but they would come out across and hover two or three miles away from where our guns could attack them. They knew about how far our guns could shoot; they didn't want any part of that Coral Sea, I'll tell you that," Mathis boasted. "I was out there for 30 months. We got into a big hurricane; we were tossing up and falling about 60 feet at a time. It came upon us all of a sudden, because an aircraft was in the air, and they wouldn't have launched an aircraft in that weather. This one pilot was trying to get aboard, and just as he came in to land, that dude took a rise, and he went into what they call a fan tail, which is the back of the ship. Of course, it killed him; it demolished the plane. It took two 40-millimeter guns at the back of the ship. It was the worst thing that we had. They had spare parts down in the hanger bay, like spare engines and those got loose. They were going back and forth, just tearing up the ship, and we had more than one million dollars worth of damage in that short amount of time."

Mathis said the shock of going from a small Indiana town to a ship with a larger and more dense population took some adjusting.

"I was very lucky to get aboard that ship. When I got out of boot camp in '51, they marched us down to the train station and put us on a train to take us to Norfolk, Virginia," Mathis said. "At that time, I was only 20 years old, and I had never been out of Owen County. I got down there, and they took us out on the dock, Pier 7. I asked, 'Where's the Coral Sea?' And the man said, 'You see that aircraft carrier anchored out there?' I said, 'Yes.' It was the biggest thing I'd ever seen in my life. At first, it was kind of scary; like I'd said, Bloomington was about as far as I'd been. I said, 'How the hell does that damn thing float out there with all of that steel?' The ship's company was 3,400 men, and when they added the air group, that kicked it up to 5,400."

Mathis said his fondest experiences included spending leisure time in Madrid, Spain, going to a bull fight and large feast afterwards, and having a beach party in Greece, where the ship often purchased produce for servicemen.

"The best place I was ever in was Madrid, Spain to see the bull fight; that was something awesome," Mathis said. "They take that sword and run it through the bull, and then that night, they have a big barbecue. They say it's that same steer. Switzerland was probably the prettiest place I've ever been."

While onboard the Coral Sea, Mathis admits he possibly passed up the opportunity of a sailor's career when he didn't take Admiral John Howard Cassady up on an invitation for any Owen County sailors to join him for dinner.

Cassady, who was born in Spencer in 1896, among numerous other assignments, served as Deputy Chief of Naval Operations from 1950-1952, Commander of the Sixth Fleet from 1952-1954 and Commander in Chief Naval Forces Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean from 1954-1956.

"At that time, he was commander of our fleet, and they had what they called the plan of the day, which was like a newspaper telling you events that are coming up," Mathis explained. "He put a note in there saying that anybody from Owen County, who wanted to have dinner with him, to tell their commanding officer and he'd send for us to come to his flag ship. I told my buddies, 'I know his family; they lived down the street on Harrison Street.' I didn't know him, I just knew the family. But I was telling those guys that I knew him. They asked if I was going over there, and when I said 'no,' they said, 'Mathis, you're the biggest damn liar we know!' Bill Stevens went over there, though. He was a Third Class Petty Officer at the time, and it wasn't a few weeks later, and he was Chief Petty Officer. I thought about it after I'd done it. He probably knew my family."

Mathis said his fondest thing to do while onboard ship was to watch the operations of the flight deck.

"People weren't allowed up there because it's so dangerous. They had catwalks along the sides of the deck, because those jet engines, when they start up, they'll suck you right in," Mathis said. "The torque is tremendous, and if you'd happen to trip or fall, that sucker would suck you into the intakes and kill you. I used to go up and watch the night operations, and there wouldn't be any lights on, but guys would still be landing. I had a guy I became friends with named Dave Cummings, and I asked him how those guys knew where to land at. He said they've got these lights along the sides of the ship, and you can only see them through these glasses the pilots wore. I was talking to one of the pilots one day and asked him how he felt about landing on that ship. He said, 'Well, you can take an envelope and put a postage stamp in the middle of it; you're supposed to land on that stamp!"